


buoyant

by ifonesthought



Category: Super Junior
Genre: Falling In Love, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Pining, abstract as fuck, mostly as part of a metaphor but putting the warning anyway, set on the night of the We Lived Together episode on Super TV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 12:57:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17808383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifonesthought/pseuds/ifonesthought
Summary: There are words to be said, so many words to fill the gaps and account for everything but for now this moment is enough.





	buoyant

The moment it happens is warm. Wrapped in the delicate watercolours of life: a suspension of blushing, whirling colours. If he closes his eyes, Jeongsu feels weightless, tied down only by the feeling of Heechul’s weight pressing into his shoulder. _Too close, too close._ His head is buzzing and too full of cotton to set off his fight or flight instinct and instead he remains rooted in place, hyper aware of every point of contact prickling against his skin as Heechul rests. He doesn’t see that his eyes are open under the lashes, staring aimlessly ahead, training his own body to play all the parts of a casual gesture.  
It doesn’t have to mean anything, unless it does. 

He had never planned for Heechul to be allowed in. He had never planned for anyone to be allowed in. He had always prided himself on his ability to keep Park Jeongsu and Leeteuk separate entities, navigating this world in the way that was best suited to the both of them. It was the only way he could cope with the flashing lights, and the copious amount of articles that flooded in day after day, and still remain the same smiling Leeteuk on stage doing what he did best. They didn’t need to know the Jeongsu who sat in bed for hours scanning every page. The search history that remained undeleted. The light of his phone, harsh and unforgiving in the early hours of the morning. 

He felt the disconnect with his inner self, the man he had grown to hate, whose skin he never hesitated to scratch raw in frustration, tearing further and further with the hopes that one day he could dig out and hold up his bloodied, dripping heart, present it up to the world and say: _here I am. Here I am in my entirety, is this what you wanted?_

It was the first time really, he had felt wanted. Or not to be so hopeful as wanted, but certainly needed. They had needed someone who could forget himself in his work, and he had been happy to oblige. At least, until it was time to film, and Heechul would grab his arm to direct him and call him by that name: _Jeongsu._ The rope was cut and the curtain rose. He rewinds the recording over and over again hoping he didn’t look as dazed and exposed on screen as he had felt when suddenly it was only the two of them in the world. 

Because Heechul had barrelled into his life with a mission, had shown up on his doorstep one day, twirling the keys he thought he had hidden so well, wearing a show stopping smile that left Jeongsu incredulous, babbling, and a little weak in the knees. He put up no resistance as Heechul pushed his way inside and made himself at home, ruffling all corners of his life in the process of his arrival. 

He had been the first really, to find gold in places less vital, to see all the parts that made the man behind the mask whole, and not just his habit of giving everyone what they wanted without question, rising to their expectations and doing even more. It was a quiet devotion, small gestures that kept pushing, nudging, creeping ever closer that Jeongsu didn’t even notice when he fell. He fell so swiftly that the words didn’t come until later. Impossible feelings with even more imprecise words. He felt so frustrated at language for being so rigid in its parameters, a box too small to put his heart in because the blood kept gushing and there was nothing deep enough to catch it all.  
The moments were far and few in between when he allowed himself to be touched, but Heechul had said _Let’s stay here awhile_ and he had nodded before he had even finished speaking. 

There was something drumming up underneath, something that felt cataclysmic in size, rumbling from deep within his bones that sent Jeongsu scurrying off to the corners of rooms, skipping out on group gatherings and averting his eyes before he could be pulled in. 

They joke about it often because once the joking stops, it’s real. Thus, an endless juggling game had begun, passing the ball from one to the other, teasing, testing, teetering on the brink of _who will be the first to let it fall_ and Jeongsu is already so scared because he knows it was him. So humiliated in his reaction to praise, an attention seeker so touch-starved, he forgot his own principles of never falling in love with the playboy. The volatile man who wore his heart on his sleeve. 

_The first one to look away likes the other more!_

And more sickening fear, the sort that drips like bile, burning your insides. _Do they know? Did you tell them?_  
Yesung’s laugh echoes in his ears, clasping his shoulders and rooting him firmly in place. 

Shindong is speaking but he can’t hear a word over his racing mind _Do you know? Did you tell them? too close too close too close too-_

_Ah, as expected, Leeteuk!_

Ah, as expected, Leeteuk. 

_Let’s stay here awhile_ he had said, and so they had. Pushing, pulling, testing the waters ever onward without ever colliding. 

It was dark now and the cameras had been put away for the night. Shindong and Donghae were soundly asleep on the couch barely a foot away and Heechul’s face was buried in his shoulder and Jeongsu could barely bring himself to breathe. Like balancing a bubble delicately on his palm, careful not to jostle it but feeling the receding tension of the water as it pulled itself taut and ready to burst without a moment’s notice. 

There are words to be said, so many words to fill the gaps and account for everything but for now this moment is enough. It can remain what it is in its purest form, in the colliding confusion of watercolours and in the way that Heechul laces their fingers together, and they are rocked to sleep by the flow of memories. 

It didn’t have to mean anything, but it did.

**Author's Note:**

> happy (late) valentines! 
> 
> thank you so much for the lovely comments on my last work, each one of them made my day and encouraged me to write more. this is rather short, but I'm thinking about planning out a proper multi-chaptered story because I'm used to writing about moments rather than arcs, so it could be an interesting exercise. anyways, thank you once again for reading ♡


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